Traffic on Sunday in Nelson was busy but flowing as Nelsonians adapted to a road closure that caused chaos and gridlocked streets the day before.

However, some motorists on Facebook reported that traffic was at a standstill on Saxton Rd close to Main Rd, Stoke as of 11:30am, which may have been related to traffic from the Nelson Half Marathon.

The event started and ended at Saxton Field.

Nelson mayor Nick Smith caught an earful yesterday when drivers were held up for hours heading into Nelson.

Resealing works on Whakatu Drive closed the road over the weekend, and caused snarl ups on routes heading into Nelson from Richmond and Stoke.

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Smith said he’s received “a storm of protest and anger” at what “looked both poorly communicated and coordinated roadworks”.

One person he spoke to was an ambulance driver who was “particularly upset” over a trip that should have taken the emergency services 10 minutes took more than 45 minutes to navigate through the gridlock, even with sirens running.

Smith said people were right to be frustrated about the “triple whammy” of State Highway 6 being closed to Blenheim, which forced additional vehicles south at the same time as the Whataku Drive was closed, as well as the roadworks in lower Nayland Rd, which exacerbated the scale of the snarl up.

At 7:30 am on Sunday, he went out to check that additional signage had been put in place on Nayland Rd, indicating that it was closed for southbound traffic going in to Suffolk Rd.

The new mayor hoped Sunday’s traffic would not be as chaotic as it was on Saturday, but thought that the word had got out about the situation and that Nelsonians were looking to either change their arrangements or make alternatives.

“I’ve got a family 80th birthday today and myself and my wife have decided that biking would be the better alternative.”

Smith said he planned to check exactly when the council was informed of the closure to better coordinate the different roadworks.

“The job that council is doing with the rising main in the lower end of Suffolk Rd is important, but not urgent, and it may have been possible with the contractor to re-jig that so that it wasn’t compounding the problem,” he said.

On Facebook, Smith said he would be writing to Waka Kotahi about the issue – but not until he had the full facts outlining whose responsibility it was to provide a traffic management plan and what modeling was done – “because what happened was not acceptable”.

“I want to have the weekend’s chaos reviewed by both council and Waka Kotahi NZTA, to ensure the poor coordination and communication is not repeated.”

Smith said with any sort of infrastructure, you needed to build resilience.

The council’s Regional Transport Committee was being formed this week, and he planned to be on it.

A further long term issue he wished to pursue was the connection of Hill St North through to Suffolk Rd, so that there was “greater resilience” in the connections between Nelson and Tasman.

The Ridgeway and Suffolk Rd did provide a further alternative route that became important in incidents such as accidents that blocked the highway, storm events, or we major roadworks, he said.

“My view is, while the event could have been better coordinated, it also emphasizes the importance of having alternative routes and resilience in the network.”

State Highway 6 Whakatu Dr is closed entirely to 5.30am, Monday, November 7.

It will then have night closures between 8pm and 5.30am from Monday, November 7, to Thursday, November 10.

Waka Kotahi thanked drivers for their patience and understanding while essential maintenance was carried out.

“We do understand that the delays caused by roadworks are frustrating for drivers. However, maintaining roads and the state highway network is vitally important as we know drivers like potholes even less.

“A full closure was chosen to let us do this work as swiftly as possible and reduce the longer term disruption to residents and road users, if work was done during the week. If we did this under stop/go traffic management, take the Whakatu Drive resurfacing could have taken up to three weeks.”